I’m going to take a stab and guess the following: I’m going to the media! Picture this: A call centre somewhere in Australia right now. An angry customer, an exasperated employee and a letter to the local news outlet that’s lobbed like a hand grenade.

The average Chief of Staff at most metro TV stations gets about half a dozen calls a week – sometimes a day – from a customer seeking revenge for a bad deal.

What happens next is telling. Having sat in the Chief of Staff desk at a few newsrooms over the years I can tell you that most of the complaints get ignored. Occasionally, though, the combination of a bank that’s just reported a massive profit and a single mother with three kids who are about to be made homeless is just too much to resist.

For me the critical question raised by incidents like this is: How did this situation arise in the first place? Addressing this question is why successful companies need to have their customer service folk and their PR and Marketing professionals working hand in glove. I should also include the customer insight folk in there as well.

These customer pain points are rich sources of learning. What happened here? Why was the customer so unhappy? Did they understand what their contract with the company entitled them to receive and were they clear on how much that would cost? The customer is NOT always right – but you can learn from even the most unreasonable customers. And, no, you won’t always be able to give the customers what they want – but if you just feel the fear, and don’t learn anything from these incidents, you are missing out on a big opportunity to grow your business and understand what it takes to attract new customers and keep the ones you’ve got.